


Diary of a Confused Captain

by JoAryn



Series: Diary of a ________ ________ [2]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Diary/Journal, F/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 22:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6302542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAryn/pseuds/JoAryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Janeway ruminates on her life.  ep. Hunters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diary of a Confused Captain

**Author's Note:**

> This has not been properly beta-ed and for that, I apologize. However, it kind of goes with the whole "stream of consciousness" thing, so I'm going to try not to worry about it.

# Diary of a Confused Captain

Mark is gone. Well, not so much gone as out of my life - not that he's really been in my life for the past four years, but it's different now. With his letter, he deftly snipped the last threads of conscience holding me to him. 

I'm pleased, in a way. I still care for him and it sounds like he has found a good woman to share his life with, probably far better than me. As much as I loved him, and I did, my experiences of captaining Voyager through the Delta Quadrant have changed me. 

I think, perhaps, if we'd gotten home in that first year, I might have been able to transition back to the comfortable relationship he and I had. I know that I thought would at the time, but looking back, I'm not so entirely sure.

We hadn't really had that much trauma, yet, at that point in our voyage. We'd had skirmishes with the Kazon, the Vidiians, and a small handful of other unfriendly species, but it wasn't really anything that we couldn't have encountered on the fringes of Federation space in the Alpha Quadrant. The Tzenkethi are nearly always restive and the Breen have never been particularly peaceable. Both races hold territory near the Badlands, even if the Cardassians have been the most dominant force in that region for the last decade. 

We'd also had positive experiences, such as our meeting with the 37s, which probably wasn't quite so different from encountering a Preservers planet. I don't suppose the peoples of early 20th century Earth were all that much in danger of dying out, but the 37s and their descendants never had to go through the worst of World War II, the Eugenics wars, World War III, and all of the other smaller conflicts that stain human history from that point until First Contact.

I've gotten rather off track . . . suffice to say, I don't think that we were so irreversibly changed in that first year that we wouldn't have slotted back neatly into our lives. 

Of course, the "we" had already changed. I almost forget that at times. It wasn't "we" the Starfleet crew that departed DS9 at that point; it was already a merged crew of Starfleet and Maquis, working together for survival. Outside of a few isolated hiccoughs at the very beginning, the crews melded almost seamlessly in what seems like an impossibly short amount of time. I credit Chakotay with how smoothly the transition was made.

And there's the crux of my thoughts. Almost from the first instant Chakotay beamed onto Voyager's bridge, I have been drawn to him. It wasn't love - I really did love Mark and was looking forward to our nuptials - but Chakotay has a sort of animal magnetism that I've always struggled to ignore. And over the years of working together, not to mention the weeks we spent on New Earth, that attraction has persisted, changed, and grown to the point that I'm not sorry that Mark has moved on. 

For the past four years, the idea that if we got home, I would have to face Mark and decide what to do about our engagement has lurked at the back of my mind. For at least the last two years, that idea has been more along the lines of how to break it off without unduly injuring him. There is no doubt in my mind that, even if we found a way home tomorrow, I could ever see myself with him again. 

The letter, which I'm tempted to capitalize for the effect it has had on my thoughts at this juncture, has now laid that idea to rest. Mark has made the break and I am cut loose, given free rein of my life. And now, I must decide how I shall steer it. 

I told Chakotay that I never truly expected Mark to wait. It was true, to a point. I didn't expect it, but there was always some small section of my heart and mind that wondered if he might. And as long as there was that possibility, I couldn't really entertain the idea of moving on. 

I have decisions to make now, decisions that could and likely will, impact the entire course of my life from this point. When Chakotay rings that chime, comes to summon me to the party that I'm sure Neelix has planned, shall I tell him how I feel? Admit that lust has long since grown into love? Give my self over to a relationship even as I continue to captain Voyager in her quest for home? Or do I stay silent, treasure the closeness we have and hope that in the future, once the stars of the Alpha Quadrant shine through the viewports, there shall be time enough for love?


End file.
